In a nutshell those are the comments made in January by Acting Administrator Andy Slavitt at the J.P. Morgan Annual Health Care Conference. The Meaningful Use program as it has existed, will now be effectively over… You can now hear physicians groups burdened by the inflexible EMR mandate rejoicing. But then Slavitt continues. and replaced with […]

Sources of health care data are proliferating. The previous standard–medical charts–are being augmented with information from digital sensors, patient reported outcomes, and genetic information. Wouldn’t it be nice to have all that information in one place? That is what Salesforce is thinking. Fortune reports: Salesforce announced on Wednesday a new patient relationship management platform that […]

Here at the Healthcare Economist, I have noted that electronic medical records (EMR) are not the cure-all for healthcare delivery. EMRs have a number of problems in and of themselves. However, I do certainly acknowledge that going from a medical alphabet (see below) to a regular old English alphabet is a huge advance. […]

Why doesn’t the US have a single integrated electronic medical records system for sharing patient information. The promise from an integrated EMR is clear. In an interview for Marketplace, Dr. Neal Weinberg says: Not having immediate, accurate information in one chart can lead to complications for the patient, they could die, they could be pretty […]

Electronic Health Records can help doctors access the information they need regardless of whether they have treated you before. Setting up integrated health care systems or systems where EHR networks are interoperable can improve this facility across healthcare organizations. However, this approach is not without risks, as shown by this recent hacking episode at Anthem. […]

…is the potential for data breaches. Experian’s 2015 industry data breach forecast notes the following: We expect healthcare breaches will increase — both due to potential economic gain and digitization of records. Increased movement to electronic medical records (EMRs), and the introduction of wearable technologies introduced millions of individuals into the healthcare system, and, in […]

This quote is from David Blumenthal, a physician and former Harvard Medical School professor, who was the national coordinator for health information technology between 2009-2011. He describes in an interview for the Atlantic why adoption of electronic medical records has been so slow in the U.S. From the patient’s perspective, this is a no-brainer. The benefits […]

Technophiles pine for the data when any hospital or clinic can access all your health information from a single source. Due to competitive pressures, however, it is unlikely that a national EMR will emerge in the near future. Miller and Tucker (JHE 2014) explain: We find empirically that larger hospital systems are more likely to […]

Hayward Zwerling of the Health Care Blog notes that a large number of doctors in Massachusetts may soon be losing their license. Section 108 of Chapter 224 of the Acts of 2012 states: The first paragraph of section 2 of chapter 112 of the General Laws … is hereby amended by inserting (the following)… The board (of […]

It depends on who you ask. In the private market without health insurance, the answer is maybe. Do patients value the ability for physicians (and hospitals) to rapidly review their records more than it cost the physician to install them? If so, then they would be cost-effective as physicians could cover their cost by charging […]